Advertising community pools resources at SXSWi

Damon Webster from PhotoInduced and Bullet and Luke Sullivan, Group Creative Director at GSD&M, hosted a discussion that brought advertising professionals together to talk about surviving the transition from traditional to digital. The conversation touched on education, learning the technology and the skills recruiters really want in a partner.

Creativity is still #1

A major theme that held true for the group, as well as other sessions about creating content that I attended, was that although the medium might be different, fundamentals of creativity will not change. As Luke Sullivan assured the group, we are still in the business of telling stories, which is a creativity-driven enterprise and perhaps the one constant in which we can find some comfort.

How is the traditional advertising business changing?

According to recruiter at BLT Recruiting Andrea Andrews, agencies are looking for about a 70/30% split in terms of digital skills versus traditional, a ratio that represents the ideal candidate. The issue that she said she is running into is that people with traditional skills still have some catching up to do on the digital side. On the other hand, many advertising professionals with digital expertise don’t have the background in traditional, a component that many of her clients really need.

Epoch’s Jerry Solomon said that, at least in his experience, creative advertising businesses are becoming responsible for growing and building an audience. In other words, the shift to digital means focusing on interactivity and engagement. Businesses are choosing to spend money on creating content over investing into broadcasting because the Web is making it easier to reach audiences.

The downside is that they are trading earned dollars for earned pennies. But the upside is that Epoch s able to do things that they couldn’t do before, such as work directly with brands and own the IP, which means ownership of content.

How are ad pros keeping up with the times?

Educational institutions have been trying to meet the demands of this shift in advertising production. David Slayden from Boulder Digital Works, a program at the University of Colorado in partnership with Crispin, Porter and Bogusky, talked about how they are addressing the needs of the industry and the people who are walking through their doors.

He reiterated that content creation and delivery has changed and that focusing on those two areas is where BDW begins. He said that students range in demographic from the average 20-year-old student to the 40-year-old professional looking to learn digital content creation and delivery. Interestingly, a large number of the students in the BDW program are not looking to enter advertising. They are creative people looking for insights into technology that other programs in the university do not address.

Students from the Brand Center at Virginia Commonwealth University were also in attendance. Their program is similar to BDW. One student said that the Brand Center seeks to fill the void between the creative director and the copywriter that emerges as a result of changing technology. Classes in futurology and mobility, for example, provide students with knowledge on how to keep up with trends and platforms.

Other takeaways

The audience machine-gunned a laundry list of advice:

• Concentrate on user experience
• Don’t be afraid to bring your development team into discussions
• Keep it simple and be authentic
• Digital and traditional departments are too siloed; bridge the gap
• Have a point of view and be able to intelligently elucidate it
• PR people have to think more like publishers
• On the creative side, embrace lo-fidelity
• The appropriate medium is not always every medium on the checklist; Twitter is not a panacea
• Get get at what you do and form great partnerships to fill in the gap
• There’s a lack of mentorship; traditional and digital should work together and share knowledge
• Don’t be afraid to go for in-house jobs
• Don’t be afraid to fail; just don’t write a press release when you do
• Work on clearly communicating your ideas with your development team; they may only be telling you no because they don’t understand what you want

The session was a great start to the conversation. If you are an advertising pro with something to add to the conversation you can tweet your ideas at #sxswadpro. Visit tinyurl.com/sxswadpro for more information.